


and i don't want your pity (i just want somebody near me)

by astrogeny



Category: Fire Emblem Echoes: Mou Hitori no Eiyuu Ou | Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia, Fire Emblem Heroes
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F, Femslash February 2019, POV Second Person, criminal overuse of emdashes, sad girl psychopomp romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-03
Updated: 2019-02-03
Packaged: 2019-10-21 19:44:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17648726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astrogeny/pseuds/astrogeny
Summary: "Would you care for a partner?"Eir's downcast gaze turns towards you, and like the matching pole of a magnet, yours slides away. You can never quite look each other in the eyes."I was wondering when you would ask something of me for your own sake.""I meant, for your sake," you say, and then, because you are dead and have nothing left to lose, you add, "I know how lonesome it can be, to dance by yourself."Even you had your one good dance, your one song where you were not a princess or a goddess or an object of desire, or whatever you should have wanted to be--you were just wanted, period, and that had been enough (for you, at least).





	and i don't want your pity (i just want somebody near me)

**Author's Note:**

> my ephknoll fic: i'm the most pretentious thing you'll ever write
> 
> me, about to hit the world with this bullshit: hold my beer
> 
> i've chattered a bit on twitter about a psychopomp au where eir takes rinea to the afterlife or something, and that evolved into this. i know eir will probably go the way of the nifl sibs and get zero clear or consistent characterization, but how am i supposed to say no to a character who fits my Sad Long-Haired Fire Emblem Lady brand /and/ has a bad case of the morbs? i also wanted to dig at some of the stuff simmering under rinea's surface, particularly with how she actually feels about her reputation as this gracious, demure beauty, dealing with the after-effects of being a vestal, and her cognitive dissonance between berkut as we see him ingame and the berkut who's described by meta materials as loving and respecting her. fwiw, the song they're dancing to is "truth" from the sov ost, which plays during a lot of act v scenes in rigel castle. it doesn't actually have lyrics, but i love the idea of ost songs also being in-universe songs.

0.

You were deemed in need of a merciful death. Dire need.

You expected nothing, but what you got was an eerie woman with bone-white hair, dressed in a decaying black gown. Eir, she says her name is. She brought you a merciful death as you struggled to wrench yourself out of a crucible of fire.

She brought you to death, but then--

you've just stayed there ever since.

No paradise, no torment, no empire. Just a field of glassy flowers and misty light that seems to loop back on itself indefinitely.

1.

You ask Eir about Berkut only once, near the beginning. You never get an answer. (You have yet to ask again.)

"Most ask about themselves," Eir remarks--never with judgment, simply a sad, detached observation. "The recently-dead, they have offered me so many beautiful things. Perhaps they hope that if they move me to pity, I will let them go? So few of them understand that I have given them the greatest mercy I can."

It's the most you've heard Eir say in one go. The words come out of her in a rush, like she expects you to fade away before she's finished speaking. Perhaps you will?

"But you have no desire to move backward or forward," and Eir's words hover somewhere between a question and a statement.

This time, you are the one who never answers.

2.

You aren't even sure time is passing--Eir comes and goes in an instant or an eternity. Sometimes, you can see faint shapes at her side, but no one else ever approaches you. You feel no hunger or thirst, and you avoid the shimmering lakeside after the time you looked into it and saw, in the surreal light, fire burning cracks into the blistering skin of your face.

Too afraid to be your own companion, that leaves Eir herself.

She is awkward, almost--were she human, you might even call her shy. You know, though, from the sad, ageless eyes in her gaunt face, that she is not. You often see her on her pegasus, with its blank eyes and body that seems carved of night, but when you watch her walk, you notice that the heels of her scuffed boots never quite touch the ground.

Eir appears and disappears with no warning, as if she's trying to work up the courage to make conversation with you. You, the mere human woman, the ghost, the wraith (the witch). But it helps to think of her like a large, skittish cat, and you have always been fond of cats.

If this is all there is to death, it is neither better nor worse than you expected (and you expected it often, even anticipated it).

3.

Another thing you learn about Eir is that she fancies dancing. There could hardly be a more bizarre intersection of your interests, but sure enough, you occasionally spy her twirling about the iridescent grass, tattered skirts forming a jagged halo around her body. You look at the way she holds her arms and wonder what partner she imagines herself with, if she imagines anyone at all.

In due course (you suppose--there is no way of telling time here), you muster your courage and ask,

"Would you care for a partner?"

Eir's downcast gaze turns towards you, and like the matching pole of a magnet, yours slides away. You can never quite look each other in the eyes.

"I was wondering when you would ask something of me for your own sake."

"I meant, for your sake," you say, and then, because you are dead and have nothing left to lose, you add, "I know how lonesome it can be, to dance by yourself."

Even you had your one good dance, your one song where you were not a princess or a goddess or an object of desire, or whatever you should have wanted to be--you were just wanted, period, and that had been enough (for you, at least).

Eir clasps her long fingers together and twists them. You see the mirror of your own anxious habits in her, know that she is weighing your offer against her own fear of being kind to herself.

"Will you lead, though?"

The request takes you by surprise.

You know, of course, in theory, how to do it. At the priory where you were educated, where you failed to become both a healer and a proper lady, the Daughters of Duma had clapped out measures and made you dance both roles with scornful girls who stiffened under your touch. In practice, though, you have always been led, as a maiden should be--

( _Will you not take pride in yourself?_   he had asked. _You have every right to stand by my side, make the bastards bow to you._ )

\--and it had been your signature on an unseen contract, that you were safe letting someone else lead you, that you would follow because that was what it meant to trust each other.

You offer your hand to Eir, and she takes it gingerly, wonder lending a soft part to her bloodless lips. You feel a bit foolish, as her other hand comes to rest on your shoulder, yours chastely high on her waist. She looms at least a foot over your head, if not more. In the dizzy, bright fog of this place, she sometimes seems to grow even taller, only to shrink back within herself.

You lead her through some simple steps, ones she follows obligingly, matching your pace. There is no music, only the shuffle of your feet over grass that does not bend. The awkwardness yawns into nervousness within you, not to mention how hard it is to find any manner of rhythm in silence.

Picking a song, you begin to sing. Your voice falters and cracks because you're singing so quietly, and shame heats your cheeks (somehow--does blood even run through you anymore, or is it only fire, waiting to erupt again?). But you can feel the pique of Eir's attention, so you raise your voice and begin to take her through the proper steps. It's a slow song, meant for a simple accompaniment of pianoforte and violoncello. You never understood why it was a common choice for balls and weddings--the lyrics always struck you as somewhat melancholic.

You pull Eir closer for a brief measure, and the skin of her bare back is cold, clammy under your hand. When you dip her, you exhale, but she does not follow suit.

Did you notice, before this, that you still breathe while she does not? When you pull her upright again, she is smiling--soft and tentative, the smile of a woman who cannot yet believe she is being treasured. You know it because you wear it, too. You, a dead woman, singing and dancing with death herself in your arms, no heat mounting in the now-scandalously scant space between your bodies. You find yourself repeating the last chorus, partly because it's easy to lose track with so many things demanding your focus, partly because you don't want this to end.

This is, apparently, how you are always doomed to fall.

4.

Your voice trails off, but you keep dancing for a few more moments, hearing the last swells and fades of the instruments in some dreamlike corner of your memory. You wonder, then, how Eir would react if you leaned up and kissed her, the way you were never brave enough to do in life (in truth, you wanted to pull him down to you, and once, he would have followed, letting you reach past the ribcage of his pride to hold his heart in your hand--you have to believe this). Would the gesture mean anything to her?  She's clearly lonely, or else she would not keep you here, would not be so eager to dance with you.

Instead, you let go of all but her hand in yours, raising it to your lips as a gentleman might--but neither of you are men, and you wonder if that's why you feel a bit silly, doing this.

"Thank you," Eir whispers, after a minute, an hour, years upon years of silence. You are still holding her hand.

"No, thank _you_ ," you demur, though for once, you aren't just being polite. When death begins to weep quiet tears of gratitude, you can't even bring yourself to be surprised. You pull her back into your arms, as much for her comfort as for your own. Eir is nearly bent at the waist to cry into your shoulder, and while her tears do not wet the fabric of your blouse, they send something other than fire through your heart, through your gut.

You wonder if she, giver of mercy, has ever been given a small mercy of her own.


End file.
